Translate

Google+ Badge

Follow by Email

Search This Blog

Friday, April 14, 2017

In physics, action at a distance
is the concept that an object can be moved, changed, or otherwise
affected without being physically touched (as in mechanical contact) by
another object. That is, it is the nonlocal interaction of objects that
are separated in space. Pioneering physicist Albert Einstein described the phenomenon as "spooky action at a distance".[1]

Electricity and magnetism

Efforts to account for action at a distance in the theory of electromagnetism led to the development of the concept of a field which mediated interactions between currents and charges across empty space.

According to field theory we account for the Coulomb (electrostatic) interaction between charged particles through the fact that charges produce around themselves an electric field, which can be felt by other charges as a force. Maxwell directly addressed the subject of action-at-a-distance in chapter 23 of his A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism in 1873.[3] He began by reviewing the explanation of Ampere's formula given by Gauss and Weber.
On page 437 he indicates the physicists' disgust with action at a
distance. In 1845 Gauss wrote to Weber desiring "action, not
instantaneous, but propagated in time in a similar manner to that of
light." This aspiration was developed by Maxwell with the theory of an electromagnetic field described by Maxwell's equations,
which used the field to elegantly account for all electromagnetic
interactions, as well as light (which, until then, had been seen as a
completely unrelated phenomenon). In Maxwell's theory, the field is its
own physical entity, carrying momenta and energy across space, and
action-at-a-distance is only the apparent effect of local interactions
of charges with their surrounding field.

Electrodynamics was later described without fields (in Minkowski space) as the direct interaction of particles with lightlike separation vectors[dubious– discuss].
This resulted in the Fokker-Tetrode-Schwarzschild action integral. This
kind of electrodynamic theory is often called "direct interaction" to
distinguish it from field theories where action at a distance is
mediated by a localized field (localized in the sense that its dynamics
are determined by the nearby field parameters).[4]
This description of electrodynamics, in contrast with Maxwell's theory,
explains apparent action at a distance not by postulating a mediating
entity (the field) but by appealing to the natural geometry of special
relativity.

Direct interaction electrodynamics is explicitly symmetrical in time,
and avoids the infinite energy predicted in the field immediately
surrounding point particles. Feynman and Wheeler have shown that it can
account for radiation and radiative damping (which had been considered
strong evidence for the independent existence of the field). However
various proofs, beginning with that of Dirac have shown that direct interaction theories (under reasonable assumptions) do not admit Lagrangian or Hamiltonian formulations (these are the so-called No Interaction Theorems). Also significant is the measurement and theoretical description of the Lamb shift
which strongly suggests that charged particles interact with their own
field. Fields, because of these and other difficulties, have been
elevated to the fundamental operators in QFT and modern physics has thus largely abandoned direct interaction theory.

Gravity

Newton

Newton's
theory of gravity offered no prospect of identifying any mediator of
gravitational interaction. His theory assumed that gravitation acts
instantaneously, regardless of distance. Kepler's
observations gave strong evidence that in planetary motion angular
momentum is conserved. (The mathematical proof is only valid in the case
of a Euclidean geometry.) Gravity is also known as a force of attraction between two objects because of their mass.

From a Newtonian perspective, action at a distance can be regarded
as: "a phenomenon in which a change in intrinsic properties of one
system induces a change in the intrinsic properties of a distant system,
independently of the influence of any other systems on the distant
system, and without there being a process that carries this influence
contiguously in space and time" (Berkovitz 2008).[5]

A related question, raised by Ernst Mach,
was how rotating bodies know how much to bulge at the equator. This, it
seems, requires an action-at-a-distance from distant matter, informing
the rotating object about the state of the universe. Einstein coined the
term Mach's principle for this question.

It is inconceivable that inanimate Matter should, without the
Mediation of something else, which is not material, operate upon, and
affect other matter without mutual Contact…That Gravity should be
innate, inherent and essential to Matter, so that one body may act upon
another at a distance thro' a Vacuum, without the Mediation of any thing
else, by and through which their Action and Force may be conveyed from
one to another, is to me so great an Absurdity that I believe no Man who
has in philosophical Matters a competent Faculty of thinking can ever
fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an Agent acting constantly
according to certain laws; but whether this Agent be material or
immaterial, I have left to the Consideration of my readers.[5]

— Isaac Newton, Letters to Bentley, 1692/3

Einstein

According to Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity, instantaneous action at a distance was seen to violate the relativistic upper limit on speed
of propagation of information. If one of the interacting objects were
to suddenly be displaced from its position, the other object would feel
its influence instantaneously, meaning information had been transmitted
faster than the speed of light.

One of the conditions that a relativistic theory of gravitation must
meet is to be mediated with a speed that does not exceed c, the speed of
light in a vacuum. It could be seen from the previous success of
electrodynamics that the relativistic theory of gravitation would have
to use the concept of a field or something similar.

This problem has been resolved by Einstein's theory of general relativity
in which gravitational interaction is mediated by deformation of
space-time geometry. Matter warps the geometry of space-time and these
effects are, as with electric and magnetic fields, propagated at the
speed of light. Thus, in the presence of matter, space-time becomes non-Euclidean, resolving the apparent conflict between Newton's proof of the conservation of angular momentum and Einstein's theory of special relativity.
Mach's question regarding the bulging of rotating bodies is resolved
because local space-time geometry is informing a rotating body about the
rest of the universe. In Newton's theory of motion, space acts on
objects, but is not acted upon. In Einstein's theory of motion, matter
acts upon space-time geometry, deforming it, and space-time geometry
acts upon matter, by affecting the behavior of geodesics.

Quantum mechanics

Since the early twentieth century, quantum mechanics has posed new challenges for the view that physical processes should obey locality. Whether quantum entanglement counts as action-at-a-distance hinges on the nature of the wave function and decoherence,
issues over which there is still considerable debate among scientists
and philosophers. One important line of debate originated with Einstein,
who challenged the idea that quantum mechanics offers a complete
description of reality, along with Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen. They proposed a thought experiment involving an entangled pair of observables with non-commuting operators (e.g. position and momentum).[7]
This thought experiment, which came to be known as the EPR paradox,
hinges on the principle of locality. A common presentation of the
paradox is as follows: two particles interact and fly off in opposite
directions. Even when the particles are so far apart that any classical
interaction would be impossible (see principle of locality), a measurement of one particle nonetheless determines the corresponding result of a measurement of the other.

Non-standard interpretations of quantum mechanics vary in their response to the EPR-type experiments. The Bohm interpretation gives an explanation based on nonlocal hidden variables for the correlations seen in entanglement. Many advocates of the many-worlds interpretation argue that it can explain these correlations in a way that does not require a violation of locality,[9] by allowing measurements to have non-unique outcomes.

Nothing is a concept denoting the absence of something, and is associated with nothingness.[1] In nontechnical uses, nothing denotes things lacking importance, interest, value, relevance, or significance.[1]Nothingness is the state of being nothing,[2] the state of nonexistence of anything, or the property of having nothing.

Philosophy

Western philosophy

Some would consider the study of "nothing" to be foolish. A typical response of this type is voiced by Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) in conversation with his landlord, one Dr. Gozzi, who also happens to be a priest:

“

As
everything, for him, was an article of faith, nothing, to his mind, was
difficult to understand: the Great Flood had covered the entire world;
before, men had the misfortune of living a thousand years; God conversed
with them; Noah had taken one hundred years to build the ark; while the
earth, suspended in air, stood firmly at the center of the universe
that God had created out of nothingness. When I said to him, and proved
to him, that the existence of nothingness was absurd, he cut me short,
calling me silly.[3]

”

However, "nothingness" has been treated as a serious subject for a
very long time. In philosophy, to avoid linguistic traps over the
meaning of "nothing", a phrase such as not-being is often employed to make clear what is being discussed.

Parmenides

One of the earliest western philosophers to consider nothing as a concept was Parmenides (5th century BC), who was a Greek philosopher of the monist
school. He argued that "nothing" cannot exist by the following line of
reasoning: To speak of a thing, one has to speak of a thing that exists.
Since we can speak of a thing in the past, this thing must still exist
(in some sense) now, and from this he concludes that there is no such
thing as change. As a corollary, there can be no such things as coming-into-being, passing-out-of-being, or not-being.[4]

Parmenides was taken seriously by other philosophers, influencing, for instance, Socrates and Plato.[5]
Aristotle gives Parmenides serious consideration but concludes;
"Although these opinions seem to follow logically in a dialectical
discussion, yet to believe them seems next door to madness when one
considers the facts."[6]

Leucippus

Leucippus (early 5th century BC), one of the atomists,
along with other philosophers of his time, made attempts to reconcile
this monism with the everyday observation of motion and change. He
accepted the monist position that there could be no motion without a void. The void is the opposite of being. It is not-being. On the other hand, there exists something known as an absolute plenum,
a space filled with matter, and there can be no motion in a plenum
because it is completely full. But, there is not just one monolithic
plenum, for existence consists of a multiplicity of plenums. These are
the invisibly small "atoms" of Greek atomist theory, later expanded by Democritus (circa 460 BC – 370 BC), which allows the void to "exist" between them. In this scenario, macroscopic objects can come-into-being, move through space, and pass into not-being
by means of the coming together and moving apart of their constituent
atoms. The void must exist to allow this to happen, or else the "frozen
world" of Parmenides must be accepted.

Bertrand Russell
points out that this does not exactly defeat the argument of Parmenides
but, rather, ignores it by taking the rather modern scientific position
of starting with the observed data (motion, etc.) and constructing a
theory based on the data, as opposed to Parmenides' attempts to work
from pure logic. Russell also observes that both sides were mistaken in
believing that there can be no motion in a plenum, but arguably motion
cannot start in a plenum.[7]
Cyril Bailey notes that Leucippus is the first to say that a "thing"
(the void) might be real without being a body and points out the irony
that this comes from a materialistic atomist. Leucippus is therefore the
first to say that "nothing" has a reality attached to it.[8]

Aristotle, Newton, Descartes

Aristotle (384–322 BC) provided the classic escape from the logical problem posed by Parmenides by distinguishing things that are matter and things that are space.
In this scenario, space is not "nothing" but, rather, a receptacle in
which objects of matter can be placed. The true void (as "nothing") is
different from "space" and is removed from consideration.[9][10]

This characterisation of space reached its pinnacle with Isaac Newton who asserted the existence of absolute space.

René Descartes,
on the other hand, returned to a Parmenides-like argument of denying
the existence of space. For Descartes, there was matter, and there was
extension of matter leaving no room for the existence of "nothing".[11]

The idea that space can actually be empty was generally still not
accepted by philosophers who invoked arguments similar to the plenum
reasoning. Although Descartes views on this were challenged by Blaise Pascal, he declined to overturn the traditional belief, commonly stated in the form "Nature abhors a vacuum". This remained so until Evangelista Torricelli
invented the barometer in 1643 and showed that an empty space appeared
if the mercury tube was turned upside down. This phenomenon being known
as the Torricelli vacuum and the unit of vacuum pressure, the torr, being named after him. Even Torricelli's teacher, the famous Galileo Galilei had previously been unable to adequately explain the sucking action of a pump.[12]

John the Scot

John the Scot, or Johannes Scotus Eriugena
(c. 815–877) held many surprisingly heretical beliefs for the time he
lived in for which no action appears ever to have been taken against
him. His ideas mostly stem from, or are based on his work of translating
pseudo-Dionysius. His beliefs are essentially pantheist and he classifies evil, amongst many other things, into not-being.
This is done on the grounds that evil is the opposite of good, a
quality of God, but God can have no opposite, since God is everything in
the pantheist view of the world. Similarly, the idea that God created
the world out of "nothing" is to be interpreted as meaning that the
"nothing" here is synonymous with God.[13]

G. W. F. Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) is the philosopher who brought the dialectical method to a new pinnacle of development. According to Hegel in Science of Logic the dialectical methods consists of three steps. First, a thesis is given, which can be any proposition in logic.
Second, the antithesis of the thesis is formed and, finally, a
synthesis incorporating both thesis and antithesis. Hegel believed that
no proposition taken by itself can be completely true. Only the whole
can be true, and the dialectical synthesis was the means by which the
whole could be examined in relation to a specific proposition. Truth
consists of the whole process. Separating out thesis, antithesis, or
synthesis as a stand-alone statement results in something that is in
some way or other untrue. The concept of "nothing" arises in Hegel right
at the beginning of his Logic. The whole is called by Hegel the "Absolute" and is to be viewed as something spiritual. Hegel then has:[14]

Existentialists

The most prominent figure among the existentialists is Jean-Paul Sartre, whose ideas in his book Being and Nothingness (L'être et le néant) are heavily influenced by Being and Time (Sein und Zeit) of Martin Heidegger, although Heidegger later stated that he was misunderstood by Sartre.[15] Sartre defines two kinds of "being" (être). One kind is être-en-soi, the brute existence of things such as a tree. The other kind is être-pour-soi
which is consciousness. Sartre claims that this second kind of being is
"nothing" since consciousness cannot be an object of consciousness and
can possess no essence.[16] Sartre, and even more so, Jaques Lacan,
use this conception of nothing as the foundation of their atheist
philosophy. Equating nothingness with being leads to creation from
nothing and hence God is no longer needed for there to be existence.[17]

Eastern philosophy

The understanding of 'nothing' varies widely between cultures,
especially between Western and Eastern cultures and philosophical
traditions. For instance, Śūnyatā (emptiness), unlike "nothingness", is considered to be a state of mind in some forms of Buddhism (see Nirvana, mu, and Bodhi).
Achieving 'nothing' as a state of mind in this tradition allows one to
be totally focused on a thought or activity at a level of intensity that
they would not be able to achieve if they were consciously
thinking. A classic example of this is an archer attempting to erase
the mind and clear the thoughts to better focus on the shot. Some
authors have pointed to similarities between the Buddhist conception of
nothingness and the ideas of Martin Heidegger and existentialists like
Sartre,[18][19] although this connection has not been explicitly made by the philosophers themselves.

In some Eastern philosophies, the concept of "nothingness" is characterized by an egoless state of being in which one fully realizes one's own small part in the cosmos.

Computing

In computing, "nothing" can be a keyword (in VB.Net) used in place of something unassigned, a data abstraction.
Although a computer's storage hardware always contains numbers,
"nothing" symbolizes a number skipped by the system when the programmer
desires. Many systems have similar capabilities but different keywords,
such as "null", "NUL", "nil", and "None".[20]
To instruct a computer processor to do nothing, a keyword such as "NOP" may be available. This is a control abstraction; a processor that executes NOP will behave identically to a processor that does not process this directive.[21]

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Human enhancement (Augment) is "any attempt to temporarily or permanently overcome the current limitations of the human body
through natural or artificial means. It is the use of technological
means to select or alter human characteristics and capacities, whether
or not the alteration results in characteristics and capacities that lie
beyond the existing human range."[1][2][3]

In terms of technological enhancements, Kevin Warwick
lists the possibilities as enhanced memory, enhanced communication,
enhanced senses, multi-dimensional thinking, extending the body, in
built machine thinking, outsourcing memory, enhanced maths + speed of
thinking + problem solving.,[9] He also states that "a person's brain and body do not have to be in the same place".[10]

Emerging technologies

Speculative technologies

Mind uploading,
the hypothetical process of "transferring"/"uploading" or copying a
conscious mind from a brain to a non-biological substrate by scanning and mapping a biological brain in detail and copying its state into a computer system or another computational device.

Advocacy of the case for human enhancement is increasingly becoming synonymous with “transhumanism”,
a controversial ideology and movement which has emerged to support the
recognition and protection of the right of citizens to either maintain
or modify their own minds and bodies; so as to guarantee them the freedom of choice and informed consent of using human enhancement technologies on themselves and their children.[17]

Neuromarketing consultant Zack Lynch argues that neurotechnologies will have a more immediate effect on society than gene therapy and will face less resistance as a pathway of radical human enhancement. He also argues that the concept of "enablement" needs to be added to the debate over "therapy" versus "enhancement".[18]

Dale Carrico wrote that "human enhancement" is a loaded term which has eugenic overtones because it may imply the improvement of human hereditary traits to attain a universally accepted norm of biological fitness (at the possible expense of human biodiversity and neurodiversity),
and therefore can evoke negative reactions far beyond the specific
meaning of the term. Furthermore, Carrico wrote that enhancements which
are self-evidently good, like "fewer diseases", are more the exception
than the norm and even these may involve ethical tradeoffs, as the controversy about ADHD arguably demonstrates.[22]

However, the most common criticism of human enhancement is that it is or will often be practiced with a reckless and selfish
short-term perspective that is ignorant of the long-term consequences
on individuals and the rest of society, such as the fear that some
enhancements will create unfair physical or mental advantages to those
who can and will use them, or unequal access to such enhancements can
and will further the gulf between the "haves" and "have-nots".[23][24][25][26] Futurist Ray Kurzweil
has shown some concern that, within the century, humans may be required
to merge with this technology in order to compete in the marketplace.[citation needed]

Other critics of human enhancement fear that such capabilities would
change, for the worse, the dynamic relations within a family. Given the
choices of superior qualities, parents make their child as opposed to
merely birthing it, and the newborn becomes a product of their will
rather than a gift of nature to be loved unconditionally. This is
problematic because it could harm the unconditional love a parent ought
give their child, and it could furthermore lead to serious
disappointment if the child does not fulfill its engineered role.[27]

Accordingly, some advocates, who want to use more neutral language, and advance the public interest in so-called "human enhancement technologies", prefer the term "enablement" over "enhancement";[28]
defend and promote rigorous, independent safety testing of enabling
technologies; as well as affordable, universal access to these
technologies.[16]

Inequality and social disruption

Some believe that the ability to enhance one's self would reflect the overall goal of human life: to improve fitness and survivability. They claim that it is human nature to want to better ourselves via increased life expectancy, strength, and/or intelligence, and to become less fearful and more independent.[29] In today's world, however, there are stratification among socioeconomic
classes that prevent the less wealthy from accessing these
enhancements. The advantage gained by one person's enhancements implies a
disadvantage to an unenhanced person.[30][8] Human enhancements present a great debate on the equality between the haves and the have-nots. A modern-day example of this would be LASIK eye surgery, which only the wealthy can afford.

The enhancement of the human body could have profound changes to
everyday situations. Sports, for instance, would change dramatically if
enhanced people were allowed to compete; there would be a clear
disadvantage for those who are not enhanced.[30]
In regards to economic programs, human enhancements would greatly
increase life expectancy which would require employers to either adjust
their pension programs to compensate for a longer retirement term, or delay retirement age another ten years or so. When considering birth rates
into this equation, if there is no decline with increased longevity,
this could put more pressure on resources like energy and food
availability. A job candidate enhanced with a neural transplant
that heightens their ability to compute and retain information, would
outcompete someone who is not enhanced. Another scenario might be a
person with a hearing or sight enhancement could intrude on privacy laws
or expectations in an environment like a classroom or workplace. These
enhancements could go undetected and give individuals an overall
advantage.

Unfairness in those who receive enhancements and those who do not is a
cause for concern. Although it should be noted that unfairness already
exists within our society without the need for human enhancement.[31]
An individual taking a math exam may have a better calculator than
another, or a better suit at a job interview. The long-term physical
advantage through genetic engineering or short-term cognitive advantage of nootropics may be part of a greater issue. The real issue being that of availability.[32] How easy it is for certain individuals to get a hold of such enhancements depending on their socioeconomic standing.

Geoffrey Miller
claims that 21st century Chinese eugenics may allow the Chinese to
increase the IQ of each subsequent generation by five to fifteen IQ
points, and after a couple generations it "would be game over for
Western global competitiveness." Miller recommends that we put aside our
"self-righteous" Euro-American ideological biases and learn from the
Chinese.[33]

Effects on identity

Human enhancement technologies can impact human identity by affecting one's self-conception.[34]
This is problematic because enhancement technologies threaten to alter
the self fundamentally to the point where the result is a different and inauthentic person.[citation needed] For example, extreme changes in personality may affect the individual's relationships because others can no longer relate to the new person.[26]

Transhumanism (abbreviated as H+ or h+) is an international and intellectual movement that aims to transform the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.[1][2] Transhumanist thinkers study the potential benefits and dangers of emerging technologies that could overcome fundamental human limitations, as well as the ethics[3] of using such technologies.[4]
The most common transhumanist thesis is that human beings may
eventually be able to transform themselves into different beings with
abilities so greatly expanded from the natural condition as to merit the
label of posthuman beings.[2]

The contemporary meaning of the term "transhumanism" was foreshadowed by one of the first professors of futurology, FM-2030, who taught "new concepts of the human" at The New School in the 1960s, when he began to identify people who adopt technologies, lifestyles and worldviews "transitional" to posthumanity as "transhuman".[5] This hypothesis would lay the intellectual groundwork for the British philosopher Max More to begin articulating the principles of transhumanism as a futurist philosophy in 1990 and organizing in California an intelligentsia that has since grown into the worldwide transhumanist movement.[5][6][7]

Influenced by seminal works of science fiction,
the transhumanist vision of a transformed future humanity has attracted
many supporters and detractors from a wide range of perspectives,
including philosophy and religion.[5] Transhumanism has been characterized by one critic, Francis Fukuyama, as among the "world's most dangerous ideas",[8] to which Ronald Bailey
has countered that it is rather the "movement that epitomizes the most
daring, courageous, imaginative and idealistic aspirations of humanity".[9]

There is debate about whether the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche can be considered an influence on transhumanism despite its exaltation of the "Übermensch" (overman or superman), due to its emphasis on self-actualization, rather than technological transformation.[2][10][11][12] The transhumanist philosophies of Max More and Stefan Lorenz Sorgner have been influenced strongly by Nietzschean thinking.[10] By way of contrast, The Transhumanist Declaration[13]"...advocates the well-being of all sentience (whether in artificial intellects, humans, posthumans, or non-human animals)".

Early transhumanist thinking

Julian Huxley, the biologist who popularised the term transhumanism in an influential 1957 essay.

Fundamental ideas of transhumanism were first advanced in 1923 by the British geneticist J. B. S. Haldane in his essay Daedalus: Science and the Future,
which predicted that great benefits would come from applications of
advanced sciences to human biology—and that every such advance would
first appear to someone as blasphemy or perversion, "indecent and
unnatural". In particular, he was interested in the development of the
science of eugenics, ectogenesis
(creating and sustaining life in an artificial environment), and the
application of genetics to improve human characteristics, such as health
and intelligence.

The biologist Julian Huxley
is generally regarded as the founder of transhumanism, after he used
the term for the title of an influential 1957 article. The term itself,
however, derives from an earlier 1940 paper by the Canadian philosopher
W. D. Lighthall.[15] Huxley describes transhumanism in these terms:

Up till now human life has generally been, as Hobbes described it,
'nasty, brutish and short'; the great majority of human beings (if they
have not already died young) have been afflicted with misery… we can
justifiably hold the belief that these lands of possibility exist, and
that the present limitations and miserable frustrations of our existence
could be in large measure surmounted… The human species can, if it
wishes, transcend itself—not just sporadically, an individual here in
one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as
humanity.[16]

Huxley's definition differs, albeit not substantially, from the one
commonly in use since the 1980s. The ideas raised by these thinkers were
explored in the science fiction of the 1960s, notably in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which an alien artifact grants transcendent power to its wielder.[17]

Japanese Metabolist architects produced a manifesto in 1960 which outlined goals to "encourage active metabolic development of our society"[18] through design and technology. In the Material and Man section of the manifesto, Noboru Kawazoe suggests that:

After several decades, with the rapid progress of communication
technology, every one will have a “brain wave receiver” in his ear,
which conveys directly and exactly what other people think about him and
vice versa. What I think will be known by all the people. There is no
more individual consciousness, only the will of mankind as a whole.[19]

Artificial intelligence and the technological singularity

Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far
surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since
the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an
ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would
then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence
of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent
machine is the last invention that man need ever make.[20]

Growth of transhumanism

Cover of the first issue of H+ Magazine, a web-based quarterly publication that focuses on transhumanism.

The first self-described transhumanists met formally in the early 1980s at the University of California, Los Angeles, which became the main center of transhumanist thought. Here, FM-2030 lectured on his "Third Way" futurist ideology.[28] At the EZTV Media venue, frequented by transhumanists and other futurists, Natasha Vita-More presented Breaking Away,
her 1980 experimental film with the theme of humans breaking away from
their biological limitations and the Earth's gravity as they head into
space.[29][30] FM-2030 and Vita-More soon began holding gatherings for transhumanists in Los Angeles,
which included students from FM-2030's courses and audiences from
Vita-More's artistic productions. In 1982, Vita-More authored the Transhumanist Arts Statement[31] and, six years later, produced the cable TV show TransCentury Update on transhumanity, a program which reached over 100,000 viewers.

In 1986, Eric Drexler published Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology,[32] which discussed the prospects for nanotechnology and molecular assemblers, and founded the Foresight Institute. As the first non-profit organization to research, advocate for, and perform cryonics, the Southern California offices of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation became a center for futurists. In 1988, the first issue of Extropy Magazine was published by Max More
and Tom Morrow. In 1990, More, a strategic philosopher, created his own
particular transhumanist doctrine, which took the form of the Principles of Extropy, and laid the foundation of modern transhumanism by giving it a new definition:[33]

Transhumanism is a class of philosophies that seek to guide us
towards a posthuman condition. Transhumanism shares many elements of
humanism, including a respect for reason and science, a commitment to
progress, and a valuing of human (or transhuman) existence in this life.
[...] Transhumanism differs from humanism in recognizing and
anticipating the radical alterations in the nature and possibilities of
our lives resulting from various sciences and technologies [...].

In 1992, More and Morrow founded the Extropy Institute, a catalyst for networking futurists and brainstorming new memeplexes
by organizing a series of conferences and, more importantly, providing a
mailing list, which exposed many to transhumanist views for the first
time during the rise of cyberculture and the cyberdelic counterculture. In 1998, philosophers Nick Bostrom and David Pearce founded the World Transhumanist Association
(WTA), an international non-governmental organization working toward
the recognition of transhumanism as a legitimate subject of scientific inquiry and public policy.[34] In 2002, the WTA modified and adopted The Transhumanist Declaration.[13]The Transhumanist FAQ, prepared by the WTA (later Humanity+), gave two formal definitions for transhumanism:[35]

The intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility
and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through
applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available
technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human
intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.

The study of the ramifications, promises, and potential dangers of
technologies that will enable us to overcome fundamental human
limitations, and the related study of the ethical matters involved in
developing and using such technologies.

In possible contrast with other transhumanist organizations, WTA officials considered that social forces could undermine their futurist visions and needed to be addressed.[5] A particular concern is the equal access to human enhancement technologies across classes and borders.[36] In 2006, a political struggle within the transhumanist movement between the libertarian right and the liberal left resulted in a more centre-leftward positioning of the WTA under its former executive director James Hughes.[36][37]
In 2006, the board of directors of the Extropy Institute ceased
operations of the organization, stating that its mission was
"essentially completed".[38]
This left the World Transhumanist Association as the leading
international transhumanist organization. In 2008, as part of a
rebranding effort, the WTA changed its name to "Humanity+".[39]
In 2012, the transhumanist Longevity Party had been initiated as an
international union of people who promote the development of scientific
and technological means to significant life extension, that for now has
more than 30 national organisations throughout the world.[40][41]

The first transhumanist elected member of a Parliament is Giuseppe Vatinno, in Italy.[44] In 2015, Vatinno became a member of the Board of Directors of Humanity+.[45]

Theory

It is a matter of debate whether transhumanism is a branch of posthumanism
and how this philosophical movement should be conceptualised with
regard to transhumanism. The latter is often referred to as a variant or
activist form of posthumanism by its conservative,[8]Christian[46] and progressive[47][48] critics.
A common feature of transhumanism and philosophical posthumanism is
the future vision of a new intelligent species, into which humanity will
evolve and eventually will supplement or supersede it. Transhumanism
stresses the evolutionary perspective, including sometimes the creation
of a highly intelligent animal species by way of cognitive enhancement
(i.e. biological uplift),[5] but clings to a "posthuman future" as the final goal of participant evolution.[49]

As an alternative, humanist philosopher Dwight Gilbert Jones has
proposed a renewed Renaissance humanism through DNA and genome
repositories, with each individual genotype (DNA) being instantiated as
successive phenotypes (bodies or lives via cloning, Church of Man,
1978). In his view, native molecular DNA "continuity" is required for
retaining the "self" and no amount of computing power or memory
aggregation can replace the essential "stink" of our true genetic
identity, which he terms "genity".
Instead, DNA/genome stewardship by an institution analogous to the
Jesuits' 400 year vigil is a suggested model for enabling humanism to
become our species' common credo, a project he proposed in his
speculative novel The Humanist – 1000 Summers (2011), wherein humanity dedicates these coming centuries to harmonizing our planet and peoples.

The philosophy of transhumanism is closely related to technoself studies,
an interdisciplinary domain of scholarly research dealing with all
aspects of human identity in a technological society and focusing on the
changing nature of relationships between humans and technology.[54]

Aims

Raymond Kurzweil believes that a countdown to when "human life will be
irreversibly transformed" can be made through plotting major world
events on a graph.

While many transhumanist theorists and advocates seek to apply reason, science and technology for the purposes of reducing poverty, disease, disability and malnutrition around the globe,[35]
transhumanism is distinctive in its particular focus on the
applications of technologies to the improvement of human bodies at the
individual level. Many transhumanists actively assess the potential for
future technologies and innovative social systems to improve the quality
of all life,
while seeking to make the material reality of the human condition
fulfill the promise of legal and political equality by eliminating congenital mental and physical barriers.

Transhumanist philosophers argue that there not only exists a perfectionist ethical imperative
for humans to strive for progress and improvement of the human
condition, but that it is possible and desirable for humanity to enter a
transhuman phase of existence in which humans enhance themselves beyond what is naturally human. In such a phase, natural evolution would be replaced with deliberate participatory or directed evolution.

Some theorists such as Raymond Kurzweil think that the pace of technological innovation is accelerating and that the next 50 years may yield not only radical technological advances, but possibly a technological singularity, which may fundamentally change the nature of human beings.[55]
Transhumanists who foresee this massive technological change generally
maintain that it is desirable. However, some are also concerned with the
possible dangers of extremely rapid technological change and propose
options for ensuring that advanced technology is used responsibly. For
example, Bostrom has written extensively on existential risks to humanity's future welfare, including ones that could be created by emerging technologies.[56]

While many people believe that all transhumanists are striving for
immortality, it is not necessarily true. Hank Pellissier, managing
director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
(2011-2012), surveyed transhumanists. He found that, of the 818
respondents, 23.8% did not want immortality.[57] Some of the reasons argued were boredom, Earth's overpopulation and the desire "to go to an afterlife".[57]

Empathic fallibility and conversational consent

Certain transhumanist philosophers hold that since all assumptions about what others experience are fallible,
and that therefore all attempts to help or protect beings that are not
capable of correcting what others assume about them no matter how
well-intentioned are in danger of actually hurting them, all sentient beings deserve to be sapient. These thinkers argue that the ability to discuss in a falsification-based way constitutes a threshold that is not arbitrary
at which it becomes possible for an individual to speak for
himself/herself/itself in a way that is not dependent on exterior
assumptions. They also argue that all beings capable of experiencing
something deserve to be elevated to this threshold if they are not at
it, typically stating that the underlying change that leads to the
threshold is an increase in the preciseness of the brain's
ability to discriminate. This includes increasing the neuron count and
connectivity in animals as well as accelerating the development of
connectivity in order to shorten or ideally skip non-sapient childhood
incapable of independently deciding for oneself. Transhumanists of this
description stress that the genetic engineering that they advocate is
general insertion into both the somatic cells of living beings and in
germ cells, and not purging of individuals without the modifications,
deeming the latter not only unethical but also unnecessary due to the
possibilities of efficient genetic engineering.[58][59][60][61]

Ethics

Transhumanists engage in interdisciplinary approaches to understand and evaluate possibilities for overcoming biological limitations by drawing on futurology
and various fields of ethics. Unlike many philosophers, social critics
and activists who place a moral value on preservation of natural systems, transhumanists see the very concept of the specifically natural as problematically nebulous at best and an obstacle to progress at worst.[62]
In keeping with this, many prominent transhumanist advocates, such as
Dan Agin, refer to transhumanism's critics, on the political right and
left jointly, as "bioconservatives" or "bioluddites", the latter term alluding to the 19th century anti-industrialisation social movement that opposed the replacement of human manual labourers by machines.[63]

A belief of counter-transhumanism is that transhumanism can cause
unfair human enhancement in many areas of life, but specifically on the
social plane. This can be compared to steroid use, where athletes who
use steroids in sports have an advantage over those who do not. The same
scenario happens when people have certain neural implants that give
them an advantage in the work place and in educational aspects.[64]

Currents

There
is a variety of opinions within transhumanist thought. Many of the
leading transhumanist thinkers hold views that are under constant
revision and development.[65] Some distinctive currents of transhumanism are identified and listed here in alphabetical order:

Spirituality

Although many transhumanists are atheists, agnostics, and/or secular humanists, some have religious or spiritual views.[34] Despite the prevailing secular attitude, some transhumanists pursue hopes traditionally espoused by religions, such as immortality,[67] while several controversial new religious movements
from the late 20th century have explicitly embraced transhumanist goals
of transforming the human condition by applying technology to the
alteration of the mind and body, such as Raëlism.[69]
However, most thinkers associated with the transhumanist movement focus
on the practical goals of using technology to help achieve longer and
healthier lives, while speculating that future understanding of neurotheology and the application of neurotechnology will enable humans to gain greater control of altered states of consciousness, which were commonly interpreted as spiritual experiences, and thus achieve more profound self-knowledge.[70]
Transhumanist Buddhists have sought to explore areas of agreement
between various types of Buddhism and Buddhist-derived meditation and
mind expanding "neurotechnologies".[71] However, they have been criticised for appropriating mindfulness as a tool for transcending humanness.[72]

Many transhumanists believe in the compatibility between the human
mind and computer hardware, with the theoretical implication that human consciousness may someday be transferred to alternative media (a speculative technique commonly known as mind uploading).[73] One extreme formulation of this idea, which some transhumanists are interested in, is the proposal of the Omega Point by Christian cosmologist Frank Tipler. Drawing upon ideas in digitalism, Tipler has advanced the notion that the collapse of the Universe billions of years hence could create the conditions for the perpetuation of humanity in a simulated reality within a megacomputer and thus achieve a form of "posthuman godhood". Tipler's thought was inspired by the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a paleontologist and Jesuit theologian who saw an evolutionary telos in the development of an encompassing noosphere, a global consciousness.[74][75][76]

The first dialogue between transhumanism and faith was a one-day conference held at the University of Toronto in 2004.[80] Religious critics alone faulted the philosophy of transhumanism as offering no eternal truths nor a relationship with the divine. They commented that a philosophy bereft of these beliefs leaves humanity adrift in a foggy sea of postmoderncynicism and anomie.
Transhumanists responded that such criticisms reflect a failure to look
at the actual content of the transhumanist philosophy, which, far from
being cynical, is rooted in optimistic, idealistic attitudes that trace back to the Enlightenment.[81] Following this dialogue, William Sims Bainbridge, a sociologist of religion, conducted a pilot study, published in the Journal of Evolution and Technology,
suggesting that religious attitudes were negatively correlated with
acceptance of transhumanist ideas and indicating that individuals with
highly religious worldviews tended to perceive transhumanism as being a
direct, competitive (though ultimately futile) affront to their
spiritual beliefs.[82]

Since 2009, the American Academy of Religion holds a "Transhumanism and Religion" consultation during its annual meeting, where scholars in the field of religious studies
seek to identify and critically evaluate any implicit religious beliefs
that might underlie key transhumanist claims and assumptions; consider
how transhumanism challenges religious traditions to develop their own
ideas of the human future, in particular the prospect of human
transformation, whether by technological or other means; and provide
critical and constructive assessments of an envisioned future that place
greater confidence in nanotechnology, robotics and information
technology to achieve virtual immortality and create a superior
posthuman species.[84]

The physicist and transhumanist thinker Giulio Prisco
states that "cosmist religions based on science, might be our best
protection from reckless pursuit of superintelligence and other risky
technologies."[85] Prisco also recognizes the importance of spiritual ideas, as the ones of Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov to the origins of the transhumanism movement.

Practice

While some transhumanists[who?]
take an abstract and theoretical approach to the perceived benefits of
emerging technologies, others have offered specific proposals for
modifications to the human body, including heritable ones.
Transhumanists are often concerned with methods of enhancing the human nervous system. Though some, such as Kevin Warwick, propose modification of the peripheral nervous system, the brain is considered the common denominator of personhood and is thus a primary focus of transhumanist ambitions.[86]

In fact Warwick has gone a lot further than merely making a proposal.
In 2002 he had a 100 electrode array surgically implanted into the
median nerves of his left arm in order to link his nervous system
directly with a computer and thus to also connect with the internet. As a
consequence he carried out a series of experiments. He was able to
directly control a robot hand using his neural signals and to feel the
force applied by the hand through feedback from the fingertips. He also
experienced a form of ultrasonic sensory input and conducted the first
purely electronic communication between his own nervous system and that
of his wife who also had electrodes implanted.[87]

As proponents of self-improvement and body modification, including gender transitioning,
transhumanists tend to use existing technologies and techniques that
supposedly improve cognitive and physical performance, while engaging in
routines and lifestyles designed to improve health and longevity.[88] Depending on their age, some[who?]
transhumanists express concern that they will not live to reap the
benefits of future technologies. However, many have a great interest in life extension strategies and in funding research in cryonics in order to make the latter a viable option of last resort, rather than remaining an unproven method.[89]
Regional and global transhumanist networks and communities with a range
of objectives exist to provide support and forums for discussion and
collaborative projects.[citation needed]

Technologies of interest

Converging Technologies, a 2002 report exploring the potential
for synergy among nano-, bio-, info- and cogno-technologies, has become a
landmark in near-future technological speculation.[90]

Some reports on the converging technologies and NBIC concepts have criticised their transhumanist orientation and alleged science fictional character.[94] At the same time, research on brain and body alteration technologies has been accelerated under the sponsorship of the U. S. Department of Defense, which is interested in the battlefield advantages they would provide to the supersoldiers of the United States and its allies.[95]
There has already been a brain research program to "extend the ability
to manage information", while military scientists are now looking at
stretching the human capacity for combat to a maximum 168 hours without
sleep.[96]

Neuroscientist Anders Sandberg
has been practicing on the method of scanning ultra-thin sections of
the brain. This method is being used to help better understand the
architecture of the brain. As of now, this method is currently being
used on mice. This is the first step towards uploading contents of the
human brain, including memories and emotions, onto a computer.[97]

Carnal Art, a form of sculpture originated by French artist Orlan, uses the body as its medium and plastic surgery as its method.[100] French biological anthropologist Dr. Judith Nicogossian also works on representations of the hybrid body.

Debate

The very notion and prospect of human enhancement and related issues arouse public controversy.[101]
Criticisms of transhumanism and its proposals take two main forms:
those objecting to the likelihood of transhumanist goals being achieved
(practical criticisms) and those objecting to the moral principles or
worldview sustaining transhumanist proposals or underlying transhumanism
itself (ethical criticisms). Critics and opponents often see
transhumanists' goals as posing threats to human values.

Some of the most widely known critiques of the transhumanist program
are novels and fictional films. These works of art, despite presenting
imagined worlds rather than philosophical analyses, are used as
touchstones for some of the more formal arguments.[5]
Various arguments have been made to the effect that a society that
adopts human enhancement technologies may come to resemble the dystopia depicted in the 1932 novel Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley.[citation needed]

Feasibility

In
a 1992 book, sociologist Max Dublin pointed to many past failed
predictions of technological progress and argued that modern futurist
predictions would prove similarly inaccurate. He also objected to what
he saw as scientism, fanaticism and nihilism by a few in advancing transhumanist causes. Dublin also said that historical parallels existed between Millenarian religions and Communist doctrines.[102]

Although generally sympathetic to transhumanism, public health professor Gregory Stock is skeptical of the technical feasibility and mass appeal of the cyborgization of humanity predicted by Raymond Kurzweil, Hans Moravec and Kevin Warwick.
He said that, throughout the 21st century, many humans would find
themselves deeply integrated into systems of machines, but would remain
biological. Primary changes to their own form and character would arise
not from cyberware, but from the direct manipulation of their genetics, metabolism and biochemistry.[103]

In her 1992 book Science as Salvation, philosopher Mary Midgley traces the notion of achieving immortality by transcendence of the material human body (echoed in the transhumanist tenet of mind uploading) to a group of male scientific thinkers of the early 20th century, including J. B. S. Haldane and members of his circle. She characterizes these ideas as "quasi-scientific dreams and prophesies" involving visions of escape from the body coupled with "self-indulgent, uncontrolled power-fantasies". Her argument focuses on what she perceives as the pseudoscientific speculations and irrational, fear-of-death-driven fantasies of these thinkers, their disregard for laymen and the remoteness of their eschatological visions.[104]

Another critique is aimed mainly at "algeny" (a portmanteau of alchemy and genetics), which Jeremy Rifkin
defined as "the upgrading of existing organisms and the design of
wholly new ones with the intent of 'perfecting' their performance".[105] It emphasizes the issue of biocomplexity and the unpredictability of attempts to guide the development of products of biological evolution. This argument, elaborated in particular by the biologist Stuart Newman, is based on the recognition that cloning and germlinegenetic engineering of animals are error-prone and inherently disruptive of embryonic development.
Accordingly, so it is argued, it would create unacceptable risks to use
such methods on human embryos. Performing experiments, particularly
ones with permanent biological consequences, on developing humans would
thus be in violation of accepted principles governing research on human
subjects (see the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki).
Moreover, because improvements in experimental outcomes in one species
are not automatically transferable to a new species without further
experimentation, it is claimed that there is no ethical route to genetic
manipulation of humans at early developmental stages.[106]

As a practical matter, however, international protocols on human
subject research may not present a legal obstacle to attempts by
transhumanists and others to improve their offspring by germinal choice
technology. According to legal scholar Kirsten Rabe Smolensky, existing
laws would protect parents who choose to enhance their child's genome
from future liability arising from adverse outcomes of the procedure.[107]

Transhumanists and other supporters of human genetic engineering do
not dismiss practical concerns out of hand, insofar as there is a high
degree of uncertainty about the timelines and likely outcomes of genetic
modification experiments in humans. However, bioethicistJames Hughes
suggests that one possible ethical route to the genetic manipulation of
humans at early developmental stages is the building of computer models of the human genome, the proteins it specifies and the tissue engineering he argues that it also codes for. With the exponential progress in bioinformatics,
Hughes believes that a virtual model of genetic expression in the human
body will not be far behind and that it will soon be possible to
accelerate approval of genetic modifications by simulating their effects
on virtual humans.[5]Public health professor Gregory Stock points to artificial chromosomes as an alleged safer alternative to existing genetic engineering techniques.[103]

Intrinsic immorality

It has been argued that, in transhumanist thought, humans attempt to substitute themselves for God. The 2002 Vatican statement Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God,[108] stated that "changing the genetic identity of man as a human person through the production of an infrahuman
being is radically immoral", implying, that "man has full right of
disposal over his own biological nature". The statement also argues that
creation of a superhuman or spiritually superior being is
"unthinkable", since true improvement can come only through religious
experience and "realizing more fully the image of God".
Christian theologians and lay activists of several churches and
denominations have expressed similar objections to transhumanism and
claimed that Christians attain in the afterlife what radical
transhumanism promises, such as indefinite life extension or the abolition of suffering. In this view, transhumanism is just another representative of the long line of utopian movements which seek to create "heaven on earth".[109][110] On the other hand, religious thinkers allied with transhumanist goals such as the theologians Ronald Cole-Turner and Ted Peters hold that the doctrine of "co-creation" provides an obligation to use genetic engineering to improve human biology.[111][112]

Other critics target what they claim to be an instrumental conception of the human body in the writings of Marvin Minsky, Hans Moravec and some other transhumanists.[51] Reflecting a strain of feminist criticism of the transhumanist program, philosopher Susan Bordo points to "contemporary obsessions with slenderness, youth and physical perfection",
which she sees as affecting both men and women, but in distinct ways,
as "the logical (if extreme) manifestations of anxieties and fantasies
fostered by our culture."[113] Some critics question other social implications of the movement's focus on body modification.
Political scientist Klaus-Gerd Giesen, in particular, has asserted that
transhumanism's concentration on altering the human body represents the
logical yet tragic consequence of atomized individualism and body commodification within a consumer culture.[78]

Nick Bostrom responds that the desire to regain youth,
specifically, and transcend the natural limitations of the human body,
in general, is pan-cultural and pan-historical, and is therefore not
uniquely tied to the culture of the 20th century. He argues that the
transhumanist program is an attempt to channel that desire into a
scientific project on par with the Human Genome Project and achieve humanity's oldest hope, rather than a puerile fantasy or social trend.[2]

Loss of human identity

In the U.S., the Amish
are a religious group probably most known for their avoidance of
certain modern technologies. Transhumanists draw a parallel by arguing
that in the near-future there will probably be "humanish", people who
choose to "stay human" by not adopting human enhancement technologies.
They believe their choice must be respected and protected.[114]

In his 2003 book Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age, environmental ethicistBill McKibben argued at length against many of the technologies that are postulated or supported by transhumanists, including germinal choice technology, nanomedicine and life extension
strategies. He claims that it would be morally wrong for humans to
tamper with fundamental aspects of themselves (or their children) in an
attempt to overcome universal human limitations, such as vulnerability
to aging, maximum life span
and biological constraints on physical and cognitive ability. Attempts
to "improve" themselves through such manipulation would remove
limitations that provide a necessary context for the experience of
meaningful human choice. He claims that human lives would no longer seem
meaningful
in a world where such limitations could be overcome technologically.
Even the goal of using germinal choice technology for clearly
therapeutic purposes should be relinquished, since it would inevitably
produce temptations to tamper with such things as cognitive capacities.
He argues that it is possible for societies to benefit from renouncing
particular technologies, using as examples Ming China, Tokugawa Japan and the contemporary Amish.[115]

Science journalistRonald Bailey claims that McKibben's historical examples are flawed and support different conclusions when studied more closely.[119]
For example, few groups are more cautious than the Amish about
embracing new technologies, but, though they shun television and use
horses and buggies, some are welcoming the possibilities of gene therapy since inbreeding has afflicted them with a number of rare genetic diseases.[103]
Bailey and other supporters of technological alteration of human
biology also reject the claim that life would be experienced as
meaningless if some human limitations are overcome with enhancement technologies as extremely subjective.

Writing in Reason magazine, Bailey has accused opponents of research involving the modification of animals as indulging in alarmism when they speculate about the creation of subhuman creatures with human-like intelligence and brains resembling those of Homo sapiens. Bailey insists that the aim of conducting research on animals is simply to produce human health care benefits.[120]

A different response comes from transhumanist personhood theorists
who object to what they characterize as the anthropomorphobia fueling
some criticisms of this research, which science fiction writer Isaac Asimov termed the "Frankenstein complex". For example, Woody Evans argues that, provided they are self-aware, human clones, human-animal chimeras and uplifted animals would all be unique persons deserving of respect, dignity, rights, responsibilities, and citizenship.[121] They conclude that the coming ethical issue is not the creation of so-called monsters, but what they characterize as the "yuck factor" and "human-racism", that would judge and treat these creations as monstrous.[34][122]

Socioeconomic effects

Some critics of libertarian transhumanism have focused on the likely socioeconomic consequences in societies in which divisions between rich and poor are on the rise. Bill McKibben,
for example, suggests that emerging human enhancement technologies
would be disproportionately available to those with greater financial
resources, thereby exacerbating the gap between rich and poor and
creating a "genetic divide".[115] Even Lee M. Silver, the biologist and science writer who coined the term "reprogenetics"
and supports its applications, has expressed concern that these methods
could create a two-tiered society of genetically engineered "haves" and
"have nots" if social democratic reforms lag behind implementation of enhancement technologies.[123] The 1997 film Gattaca depicts a dystopian society in which one's social class depends entirely on genetic modifications and is often cited by critics in support of these views.[5]

Sometimes, as in the writings of Leon Kass, the fear is that various institutions and practices judged as fundamental to civilized society would be damaged or destroyed.[124] In his 2002 book Our Posthuman Future and in a 2004 Foreign Policy magazine article, political economist and philosopher Francis Fukuyama designates transhumanism the world's most dangerous idea because he believes that it may undermine the egalitarian ideals of democracy (in general) and liberal democracy (in particular) through a fundamental alteration of "human nature".[8] Social philosopher Jürgen Habermas makes a similar argument in his 2003 book The Future of Human Nature,
in which he asserts that moral autonomy depends on not being subject to
another's unilaterally imposed specifications. Habermas thus suggests
that the human "species ethic" would be undermined by embryo-stage
genetic alteration.[125]
Critics such as Kass, Fukuyama and a variety of authors hold that
attempts to significantly alter human biology are not only inherently
immoral, but also threaten the social order. Alternatively, they argue that implementation of such technologies would likely lead to the "naturalizing" of social hierarchies or place new means of control in the hands of totalitarian regimes. AI pioneer Joseph Weizenbaum criticizes what he sees as misanthropic tendencies in the language and ideas of some of his colleagues, in particular Marvin Minsky and Hans Moravec, which, by devaluing the human organism per se, promotes a discourse that enables divisive and undemocratic social policies.[126]

In a 2004 article in the libertarian monthly Reason, science journalist Ronald Bailey
contested the assertions of Fukuyama by arguing that political equality
has never rested on the facts of human biology. He asserts that liberalism was founded not on the proposition of effective equality of human beings, or de facto equality, but on the assertion of an equality in political rights and before the law, or de jure
equality. Bailey asserts that the products of genetic engineering may
well ameliorate rather than exacerbate human inequality, giving to the
many what were once the privileges of the few. Moreover, he argues, "the
crowning achievement of the Enlightenment is the principle of tolerance". In fact, he says, political liberalism is already the solution to the issue of human and posthuman
rights since in liberal societies the law is meant to apply equally to
all, no matter how rich or poor, powerful or powerless, educated or
ignorant, enhanced or unenhanced.[9] Other thinkers who are sympathetic to transhumanist ideas, such as philosopher Russell Blackford, have also objected to the appeal to tradition and what they see as alarmism involved in Brave New World-type arguments.[127]

The major transhumanist organizations strongly condemn the coercion involved in such policies and reject the racist and classist assumptions on which they were based, along with the pseudoscientific
notions that eugenic improvements could be accomplished in a
practically meaningful time frame through selective human breeding.[130] Instead, most transhumanist thinkers advocate a "new eugenics", a form of egalitarianliberal eugenics.[131] In their 2000 book From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice,
non-transhumanist bioethicists Allen Buchanan, Dan Brock, Norman
Daniels and Daniel Wikler have argued that liberal societies have an
obligation to encourage as wide an adoption of eugenic enhancement
technologies as possible (so long as such policies do not infringe on
individuals' reproductive rights or exert undue pressures on prospective parents to use these technologies) in order to maximize public health and minimize the inequalities that may result from both natural genetic endowments and unequal access to genetic enhancements.[132] Most transhumanists holding similar views nonetheless distance themselves from the term "eugenics" (preferring "germinal choice" or "reprogenetics")[123] to avoid having their position confused with the discredited theories and practices of early-20th-century eugenic movements.

Existential risks

In his 2003 book Our Final Hour, British Astronomer RoyalMartin Rees
argues that advanced science and technology bring as much risk of
disaster as opportunity for progress. However, Rees does not advocate a
halt to scientific activity. Instead, he calls for tighter security and
perhaps an end to traditional scientific openness.[133] Advocates of the precautionary principle, such as many in the environmental movement, also favor slow, careful progress or a halt in potentially dangerous areas. Some precautionists believe that artificial intelligence and robotics present possibilities of alternative forms of cognition that may threaten human life.[134]
Transhumanists do not necessarily rule out specific restrictions on emerging technologies so as to lessen the prospect of existential risk. Generally, however, they counter that proposals based on the precautionary principle are often unrealistic and sometimes even counter-productive as opposed to the technogaian current of transhumanism, which they claim is both realistic and productive. In his television series Connections, science historianJames Burke dissects several views on technological change, including precautionism and the restriction of open inquiry. Burke questions the practicality of some of these views, but concludes that maintaining the status quo
of inquiry and development poses hazards of its own, such as a
disorienting rate of change and the depletion of our planet's resources.
The common transhumanist position is a pragmatic one where society
takes deliberate action to ensure the early arrival of the benefits of
safe, clean, alternative technology, rather than fostering what it considers to be anti-scientific views and technophobia.

One transhumanist solution proposed by Bostrom to counter existential risks is control of differential technological development,
a series of attempts to influence the sequence in which technologies
are developed. In this approach, planners would strive to retard the
development of possibly harmful technologies and their applications,
while accelerating the development of likely beneficial technologies,
especially those that offer protection against the harmful effects of
others.[56]

About Me

My formal training is in chemistry. I also read a great deal of physics and biology. In fact I very much enjoy reading in general, mostly science, but also some fiction and history. I also enjoy computer programming and writing. I like hiking and exploring nature. I also enjoy people; not too much in social settings, but one on one; also, people with interesting or "off-beat" minds draw me to them. I also have some interest in Buddhism.

These days I get a lot more information from the internet, primarily through Wiki. Some television, e. g., documentaries, PBS shows like "Nova" and "Nature".

My favorite science writers are Jacob Bronowski ("The Ascent of Man") and Richard Dawkins (his "The Blind Watchmaker" is right up there up Ascent). I also have a favorite writer on Buddhism, Pema Chodron. Favorite films are "Annie Hall" (by Woody Allen), "The Maltese Falcon", "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", "As Good As It Gets", "Conspiracy Theory", Monty Python's "Search For The Holy Grail" and "Life of Brian", and a few others which I can't think about at the moment.

I love a number of classical works (Beethoven's "Pastoral", "Afternoon Of A Fawn" and "Clair De Lune" by Debussey , Pachelbel's "Canon" come to mind. My favorite piece is probably Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue". But I also enjoy a great deal in modern music, including many jazz pieces, folk songs by people like Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, a hodgepodge of pieces by Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Niel Young, and practically everything the Beatles wrote.

My life over the last few years has been in some disarray, but I am finally "getting it together.". As I am very much into the sciences and writing, I would like to move more in this direction. I also enjoy teaching. As for my political leanings, most people would probably describe as basically liberal, though not extremely so. My religious leanings are to the absolutely none: I've alluded to my interest in Buddhism, but again this is not any supernatural or scientifically untested aspect of it but in the way it provides a powerful philosophy and set of practical, day to day methods of dealing with myself and the other human beings.